The Mitchell capital. (Mitchell, Dakota [S.D.]) 1879-1918, 1887-09-02
A LAUGHING WORLD.
DIFFERENT WAYS THE NATIONS
HAVE OF SHOWING RlslBlLITY.

DIFFERENT WAYS THE NATIONS
HAVE OF SHOWING RIslBILlTY.
The Chinese litter, the Germnns are De-
liberatc, the French Spasmotlic-Hnsh-
ington's Iaugh-The Bible and Poets
Use of the Word.
OF the worlds population those who do
not laugh are, it is safe to assume, in the
minority. Laughter is q language known
to all races in oil lands. From the re-
sounding "haw haw'' Of the male New
Englander to the high strung cachinna-
tion of the South Sea islander, there may
be as wide range of intonation and ex-
preston as there is of chronological posi-
ton; but rs q rule laughter means but
one thing-the tickling of the fancy of tho
person who laughs Six years ago Beecher
asked from lecture platform in New
York if any of his hearers had ever heard
Chinese laugh, the question being
worded in a way intended to imply
negative answer. That the Celestial can
and does give vent to his mirthful feel
ings after the manner Of other mortals'
can readily be attested by any one who
has long resided in San Francisco. To be
sure, the Chinese laugh is rarely as hearty
or expressive as the American or
European. It is oftener litter than
genuine outburst of merriment. There
is little character or force in IT, AS for
the Arabian laugh, we hear little of its
hilarious ring through the ages of mirth
in the Old World. The Arab Isl generally
looked upon as stolid fellow-a man
likely to persist In refusing to give one the
benefit of q mirthful appreciation of
joke, even if he saw the point Travellers
say, however, that he does laugh on occl-
sion, but that he must either see good rea-
son for it beforehand or be surprised into
it. In Persia n man who laughs is con-
sidered effeminate, but free license is said
to be given to female merriment. Fred
Burnaby has written of his experiences
among the laughing beauties of u certain
districtin the northern part Of that country,
He says that under cover OF the good nature
implied by their pretended jolljty, they
make bold to filch everything traveler
may have in his possession. One reads of
tho 'tgrave Turk" and the "sober Egyp-
tian, but it is not recorded that they never
have moments of mirth-when the fez
bobs or the veil shakes under pressure of
some particularly "good thing" In Ma
homet himself Christian writer's have
noted cordality and jocoseness, and they
Soy lucIe WdS d kOOU IlukluA 1duSU III Luc
prophet with all his seriousness.
An American traveller in Europe re-
marks the italian laugh as languid but
musical, the German as deliberate, the
French as spasmodic and. uncertain, the
upper class English as well guarded and
not always genuine, the lower class Eng
| lish as explosive, the Scotch of all classes
as hearty, and the Irish as rollicking.
There is much that is indicative of char
acter in the laugh of some people, while
in others Of strong personality the laugh
is the weakest and most characterlcss
thing about them. It is said of Nelson
that his laugh was often without spirit.
Napoleon laughed little, and not always
at things in which men of his command
ing dignity might he expected to find any
thing funny. When Washington cared to
break through his natural reserve he
one, but his biographers record but few
instances Of the display of jocularity on
the part of the father of his country. A
laughing president does not cut II very
dignified figure before one who is inn
pressed with the belief that sedateness is
a necessary attribute of a governments
chief executive, yet Lincoln made bold TO
laugh whenever he chose, always welcom-
ing good story teller, and relating With
much good feeling droll tales of his own
life. Webster could tell good story,
often at his own expense and join heartily
with his hearers in the laugh at the end.
He had true laugh. There are those
men, as Carlyle has tritely remarked,
whose laugh is as untrue as anything
about them.
In the Bible the words .laugh," :"
"laughter' and stlaughing" occur only
thirteen times, which, while in keeping
with the gravity of the text, is considered
by some commentators as rather singular.
Milton makes little use of the word In
his works. Shakespeare employs it fire.
quently and often epigrammatically Ten
nyson's men and women lnugh infre-
quently, although they sometimes smile.
( Dickens made a great deal of the laugh,
and often managed thereby to give the
reader clew to the character of his men
and women
Like the careful student Of human na-
turc that she was, George Eliot made note
of the thousand and one ways in which
character discloses itself through the
medium of the laugh.
In this merry age good laugh is proba-
bly, enjoyed as much as it ever was in the
worlds history. But what would nuke u
man laugh ten or twenty years ago cannot
be relied upon to do 80 now. Practical
jokes, for instance, are no longer popular,
and witticisms of the studied order, even
in comic opera or burlesque, often fail Of
appreciation And there is the difference
in national taste. A joke that sets an Eng
lishman or a German roaring is nine
times out of ten voted tame, if not stupid,
by the American. Our modern wits rely
less upon cap and bells than upon keen
satire and quick repartee. The laugh
thus created is always spontaneous, and
whether in senate chamber or court Of
justice, it is irrepressible.
Men betray or commit themselves by
their laughter as often as by anything
II knew l had only to wait until he
laughed to tell if he were lying" said a
great English philosopher of man whom
he had suspected of falsifying in an I'M
portant matter. The knave's laugh is
said to be cunning the FOOLS shallow, the
drunkard's s coarse, the lunatic's wild and
meaningless. If a man would not disclose
his character let him not laugh He may
simulate good nature and even friendship
by smiling, but he should beaware Of
audibly expressing his real or pretended
mirth, for there are those-and they are
not necessarily deep students of human
nature-who know that the true laugh
comes only from the true man-San
Francisco Chronicle.
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